The energy-efficiency benefits of pump-scheduling optimization for potable water supplies

by S. M. Bunn
and L. Reynolds

Water utilities across the developed world have been installing and
operating telemetry and SCADA (supervisory control and data
acquisition) facilities for at least three decades. They have amassed
substantial quantities of historical operational data held in
databases called data warehouses. Significant interest exists for
extracting the underlying value from this data to support decision
making and performance improvement. The water industry uses
approximately 3% of total electricity production in developed
countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States. Up to
90% of this electrical energy is consumed by pumps. Small
improvements in pump efficiency will yield significant reductions in
energy consumption with consequential reductions of carbon
emissions to the atmosphere. Technologies to initially select a
pump to match the expected performance requirements and then
maintain optimal performance through periodic refurbishment are
well established. Dynamically optimizing the scheduling of pump
operation to improve efficiency under changing diurnal and
seasonal water demand patterns is far more complex. This paper
summarizes 20 years of progress in the development of pump
efficiency improvement techniques and focuses on real-time
dynamic optimization technologies and data-mining techniques to
improve energy efficiency. Case study results from an automated
real-time commercial pump-scheduling system, Aquadapt™, are
presented.